Relentless ponders PSN freemium business

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Brighton-based indie studio Relentless wants to explore a free-to-play model on the PlayStation Network, the group’s co-founder has said.

Andrew Eades revealed his studio’s digital series, Blue Toad Murder Files, has been downloaded some 250,000 times. Yet about 70,000 of those, he said, were made over a single fortnight when the third episode of the game was released for free.

“We never really considered free as an option with Blue Toad in 2008 when we decided to make it; but I would today,” he told Edge.

“There's always a spike in sales whenever you do a promotion so we did see one when we did Episode Free,” he said.

For a number of years Sony has remained cagey on adopting the free-to-play model for its digital platform. Free games with optional in-game purchases could, in theory, spoil the system of paying Sony outright to download content.

The PlayStation manufacturer recently stated it would bring free-to-play games to PlayStation Home, while the MMO free realms had recently been published on the PlayStation Network.